9.29.2004

what a crazy week 3. both fredo and i went 9-4-1 last week. i also hit my $50 bet (3-0), although it cost me dearly in fantasy as my roommate got a touchdown out of oakland's defense. not that it mattered as i got slaughtered again. anyways, the overall records stand as follows: me - 29-15-2 (.659), fredo - 25-19-2 (.568). i caught a break as despite only a mediocre week, fredo also had a mediocre week. however, i use the word mediocre in a relative sense, as overall, i think, i'm doing pretty well for myself. not that i can prove it or anything, but fredo and i both did really well on the four or five games that we really felt good about. but that's the thing about football betting, games in the first three weeks are pretty easy to call i think. week 4 is when you start seeing vegas do a much better job of setting the lines. and looking over the schedule, i hate this week. nothing really stands out to me or fredo, which is quite unfortunate since we'll be in vegas this weekend. anyways, it still provides me a chance to put my money where my mouth is. anyways, as always, point spreads courtesy of caesar's/mirage sportbook, home team in bold.

NYG (+7.5) over GBis kurt warner in the midst of a story-book-jesus-inspired comeback? i really don't think so. but despite last week's offensive pyrotechnics at indy, i don't forsee it happening two games in a row. plus the pack's already lost at home this year, so expect a big game for ahman green and another decent day for godboy. green bay wins, but the giants will mount a comeback at the end to cover the line.

PHI (-9) over CHIi know, how can you pass up the points? with jonathan quinn starting for the bears, that's how. in former cowboy news, the bears got so desperate that they signed chutch (chad huthchinson) to back up quinn. dark times ahead for da bears.

WAS (-3) over CLEi told you portis wasn't any good. ok, maybe that's an overstatement, but cleveland can't be that bad can they? they did beat the ravens at home in week 1, and with a little mini qb controversey brewing in washington, most of the signs point to an upset. actually cleveland is that bad, and portis isn't. give me the 'skins. although how great would it be if the 'skins started 1-3.

NE (-5.5) over BUFwhen is new england going to lose? not this week. it's a division game. belichick and company will be ready.

OAK (-2) over HOUactually, now that i've typed this, i love this bet. we'll go for the double-double with the lions and raiders for my $50 bet of the week. oakland is going to be a lot better on offense with collins back there. he'll throw some picks on ya, but for all you fantasy managers, i think the raiders put up a lot of points this week.

IND (-4) over JAXhow can i bet against the jags? well, if the theory is that the jags are this year's carolina, the big difference is that the colts are a much better team than the buccaneers were last year. peyton looks damn near unstoppable doesn't he? i hate the guy, but i can't bet against him right now.

CIN (+3.5) over PITi still think that cinci is better than they've played so far. i think they'll win this one straight up. and i'll probably bet this one in vegas.

NO (-3.5) at ARIi don't get this line, and i may bet this game in vegas as well if the line is still under 4. the cards really stink by the way. really really stink. however, fredo thinks that the cards played inspired defense last week.

DEN (-3) over TBdenver has really underachieved offensively so far, haven't they? quentin griffin is killing me on one of my fantasy teams and i think i'm going to sit him against a crappy tampa bay team. however, as fredo is fond of saying, "in a game between two ordinary teams, take the favorite and the points". he is also fond of saying "patrick mackey is gay".

NYJ (-6) over MIAmiami stinks plain and simple. they have the absolute worst running game in the league. and they'll still be diststracted by hurricane problems.

SD (+3.5) over TEN
why oh why do i keep picking the chargers in these close lines? i don't know, mcnair is questionable and you figure that ladanian will rebound from his poor outing last week. that and san diego has some of the hottest women on the beach that i've ever seen.

STL (-4) over SFalong the lines of the chargers game, i'm going to go ahead and say that marshall will finally get 100 yds this week and couple of scores. i really want to pick san fran at home, but we have another "two bad teams" scenario.

KC (+4) over BALthe chiefs haven't covered all year. which makes them exceedingly difficult to pick because with weapons like priest, gonzalez, and trent green, you always get this nagging feeling that they have to turn it around at some point. this game sucks. i'm staying away from it.

9.27.2004

i was at border's books the other day and i was perusing the periodicals rack and as most any normal guy does, he runs his eyes past the men's section to see which hot mama is on the cover of maxim, fhm, gq, etc. anyways, lo and behold if it isn't avril lavigne on the cover of maxim.

anyways, this kills me for a couple of reasons. first, avril's entire image in built on this bogus idea that she's not like the other jailbait age pop stars out there like britney spears or jessica simpson. that somehow, her music is not manufactured and instead, she's a serious artist that has succeeded because the evil record companies are too busy trying to cash in on the britney's of the world by emphasizing image over substance and that avril's music somehow provides an alternative to all of that. i even remember one specific quote where she said something about how she hated the thought of what image of britney spears was doing to other little girls everywhere. and yet here she is, on the cover of the magazine that has come to define the new sexism. here boobs are on prominent display and she's wearing a shirt that says "did you really think that i was going to give it up to you" (which seems very puritanical for someone who is raging against the mainstream and authority). it typifies the hypocrisy that most britney haters espouse. there's only one difference between britney and avril lavigne, and that is the style of music that they perform. my own personal theory that i'm working on is that the reason why we are so ready to give britney crap so quickly is that because her music style is closer to blackness than say avril's. i know, i know, it's not a perfect theory, and there are some obvious problems with it, but you can't tell me that race doesn't have anything to do with it.

her interview in maxim is somewhat interesting. she's definitely keeping with her bad girl that doesn't take shit from anyone image. she talks about "kicking a girl in her box" for getting in her face at a bar. and she also says something about not liking groupies becuase "it needs to mean something" to her. all complete b.s.

anyways, i think that this is a perfect illustration of quickly dominant structures are to co-opt the symbols of youth/resistant culture. i mean really, just how punk rock is avril lavigne or ashlee simpson? anyways, i've been accusing avril of hypocrisy for a long time, so this is nothing but an excuse to tell avril where she can stick her middle fingers that she likes to flash so much like crip gang signs. thanks for contributing to the objectification of teenage women avril.

9.26.2004

if you take a quick peek over to the right in the sidebar, the really observant will notice that i changed the counter that i'm using. the original one that i was using did nothing but count how many unique users had viewed the blog and nothing else. anyways, i had tried out of couple of other free counters at the bottom of my site to see if they would be any better. the first one i tried, nedstat, did a pretty good job. in addition to counting page views, i could keep track of a bunch of other stuff, most notably, where the page views were coming. however, i couldn't get it to count unique users. so basically, if i'm working on the blog and i load the url just to check it, it would count it on the counter. also, i was getting some weird popups when i was viewing statistics, so i had a bad feeling that they might be associated with some bad spyware sites such as gator or gain. anyways, i have settled on using statcounter, which so far has worked marvelously and is completely free (for now). anyways, in addition to seeing where the hits are coming from, i can also track how long people have been at my site, how many times they've come back if they've been there before. i can even get their specific IP address from the counter, not that i would know what to do with someone's IP address. anyways, another neat feature they have is that i can find out what website people were at right before they accessed the blog. all of this has been prelude to the following great story.

so i'm checking the stats for the counter and i take a look at the referring websites and one of them is this:

for those of you who can't translate, this means that someone went to yahoo and did a search for "fatass beautiful women", and my blog was on the 31st page of search results that this search returned. now before you get all excited and start looking for all of the fat porn on the blog, the reason it turns up like this is because in this post, i used the word "women" in making reference to the statues of naked women at the Art Institute of Chicago, in this post, i used the word "fatass" to refer to a wheels off CNN story, and in this post, i made a reference to the van halen song, "beautiful girls".

this is great for several reasons. first, when someone was looking for tricked up porn, somehow, the internet gods directed this person to my blog. second, this was the 31st page returned! i can only guess that he flipped through all of the pages before it and even by the time he got to the 301st site, this person still wanted more fatass beautiful women. someone out there really loves their fat porn!

anyways, this all goes to show you that despite any hopes and dreams for the internet to become an instrument of liberation or democracy or freedom, the thing that the internet is most used for and by logical extension, the thing that the internet is best suited for is quite simply sharing porn.

this reminds me of one of my single favorite jokes of all time. it's a combination of generic talk mixed in with shock value. anyways, if someone is talking about the internet or porn, i'll chime in and say, "yeah, i can't believe how much porn is out there on the internet. you really can't even get away from it either. like the other day, i was on the internet looking for information on renewing my driver's license, and i typed in "shaved teen asians" and all i got were porn sites!" pretty good heh? feel free to use it and pass it off as your own joke. i don't mind.

p.s. trust me on this one, unless you're sure that kinda thing really gets you going, don't click on any of the links that are returned when you do a web search for "fatass beautiful women."
p.p.s. because this post talks so much about fat porn, it's sure to show up in more people's searches for fat porn. if you're one of those people, you need some help. quit tricking up your sex!

9.25.2004

for those of you who are politically inclined, this site does a good job of showing that kerry, the kerry camp, and the democrats are big douchebags. don't get me wrong, bush, the bush camp, and the republicans are still bigger douchebags and this website also shows that too. but this is just a reminder to those people who accuse bush of trying to polarize the world into black and white views of good and evil, that their candidate is doing the same thing. and that makes them hypocrites, ergo douchebags as well. but as michael corleone would say to a nevada senator, "we're all part of the same hypocrisy."

the new U2 single, vertigo hit the radio waves today. i was pretty excited about the whole deal so when i woke up this morning, i immediately turned on the radio. i waited for about five minutes and got impatient and called the radio station. unbeknownst to me, i got on the air. the conversation went like this.

anyways, the opening guitar riff sounds exactly like the opening riff on that one vines song. the overall vibe i got was ramones and war/boy era u2. i'm guessing that bono wanted to play tribute to joey ramone's passing a few years back. but that's just me. i do like the song, but i gotta be honest, i was much more jazzed when i first heard beautiful day. however, this song definitely has the potential to grow on me. and even so, it's U2 man! anyways, everything i've read about the new album has had quotes like "the edge is playing some amazing guitar on these days." i've kinda dismissed that as generic album buzz talk, but after hearing the new song, i must say that i'm quite happy with the guitar work on this first single. lastly, i've decided that the title of the new album, "how to dismantle an atomic bomb" is really not a good title. i'm really disappointed to be honest, but that's ok i suppose. at least the name of the album isn't something retarded like "seven and the ragged tiger" or "joshua tree 2: back to the desert".(see footnote)

personal meta-blog note: you may have noticed that i have reviewed alot of movies, some television and a ton of sports. however, i have yet to really review music. this despite the fact that i own more cds that any single human being should. it's not that i don't want to, because as you can imagine, i have plenty of opinions on the music that i spend money on. i think that i've shied away from the whole reviewing music thing for a couple of reasons. first, i hate people who criticize basically any music. especially when it comes to music, i'm a big proponent of the idea of there's no such thing as bad music, whatever floats your boat. however, i realize that this is stupid, i can review the music that i listen to without being an elitist blowhard about music like that bitch ann powers or chuck klosterman (incidentally, i have a great story about chuck klosterman that i might tell in another post). besides, i probably need the practice so that i can start reviewing new albums for rolling stone later on in life.

the second reason and the one that i don't think is necessarily a bad one. it just seems of all the types of pop culture that people consume and identify with, music is the most personal one. people get really attached to their music and i think are more likely to be passionate or fanatical about their tastes. for me, this is definitely the case, as music is an important part of my life. as i am constantly evaluating the direction of this blog, one thing that i didn't want it to turn into was some kind of online journal, where i share stupid things like my hopes and dreams with complete strangers. that's better left to douchebags like rivers cuomo or billy corgan. anyways, to review music would be to reveal some genuinely personal part of me that i don't think i'm ready to share with the world (not that anyone's really reading this). after all, it's not like record companies send me free cds in hopes of getting a review on the ragin' asian blog. no, no, no, any music that i would be reviewing would have to be of music that i've spent my hard earned cash buying or my hard earned time stealing off of file sharing programs. so revealing what i'm listening to would be akin to being a douchebag. anyways, i'm rethinking this, and maybe i'll start slowly and review some notable releases and then as i get more confortable, i'll start reviewing all the new music that i get.

* "the joshua tree 2: back to the desert" - fredo came up with this game that we call, "when our heroes let us down", and basically you have to come up with the scenario in which you would turn your back on your heroes. the scenario that he came up with for U2 is for them to release an album called "the joshua tree II: back to the desert" on this album there would be reworked titles of songs from the original joshua tree. so instead of "in god's country", there would be a track on TJT2 would be "in the devil's country" and other really lame stuff like that. the best (or worst) part of the scenario would be the cover art. it would be the same picture and the same lettering for "the joshua tree" part, but then in a graffiti font, there would be a 2 in red spray paint after "the joshua tree" and then at an angle under the title, the red spray paint graffiti font would spell out "back to the desert".

p.s. hello sarah. you like the edge better than bono? come on man, that's just crazy talk. there's just no reason to make this statement. none whatsoever.

9.23.2004

i'm getting killed in most of my fantasy leagues, but i'm doing ok against the spread. last week i was 11-5, while fredo had another losing week of 9-7. for the season, i'm 20-11-1 (.645) and fredo is 16-15-1 (.516). i don't know how to count the ties so i just threw them out. anyways, here are this weeks picks. as always, point spreads courtesy of the caesar's/mirage sportsbook and home teams in bold.

PIT (+1.5) over MIAyeah, miami is at home and the steelers aren't that great, but i think cowher makes it easy on roethlesberger and feeds the ball to staley, bettis, et. al. fredo seems to think that you can run on miami as well, although rudi johnson looked pretty pedestrian last week.

JAX (+6) over TENi don't think the jaguar magic has worn off yet. i'm not sure that they'll win, but i think that the defense is good enough to keep it at least close.

CLE (+3) over NYGi don't get this line at all, but i guess the browns looked like dogshit last week (statistical note, jeff garcia had a passer rating of 0.00 last week). anyways, i suppose the giants are coming off the upset against the redskins, but i think that was a fluke.

BAL (-2.5) over CINmy first non-upset pick, but i noticed that i don't have any of the home teams covering yet. dicey, i know. but fredo had a good point last week in that there are some games in reality you just stay away from. this is one of those games for me. although in my defense, ogden is coming back so that should help the raven's running game.

KC (-8) over HOU
everyone's writing about what's wrong with KC and with priest questionable, i suppose this be another game that i would stay away from unless i was sure of priest's availability. however, the texans are extremely underwhelming to me right now. KC's defense has gone from bad to worse, but i think the chiefs turn it around this week.

NO (+7) over STLthis line is really really confusing to me. the rams look awful and the saints look better than advertised. i suppose deuce being out hurts the saints, but i think aaron brooks will come through in a big way this week. if you have him on your fantasy team, start him.

MIN (-9.5) over CHI
i know this line is huge and we have minnesota coming off a loss and chicago coming off a win. but i think that the bears win last week was a complete aberration and daunte and company will roll this week.

PHI (-5) over DETi love detroit this year, but philly looked great against the vikes on monday night. i know that minnesota had o-line problems, but it just seemed like there was always someone pressuring culpepper last week. i expect the same this week which will cause harrington to throw 20 ints.

ARI (+10) over ATLdon't get me wrong, i think that arizona is the worst team in the league, but 10 points this early in the season is just to much to pass up...

DEN (-10) over SD
...unless you're the chargers at mile high. ladanian will have a pretty good day. but not enough to counter the broncos running game which i'm hoping for fantasy's sake will run roughshod over the SD d-line. incidentally this is another game i wouldn't really bet on cuz i hate betting with jake the fake. i've been saying this for years but that guy is just an interception machine. and let's not forget which crappy pissant school that he went to.

IND (-5) over GB
my friend fredo said it best when he said that indy is going to teach green bay a lesson that they won't forget. by the way, i've decided that green bay won't make the playoffs this year.

SF (+10.5) over SEAwhat's with all the huge lines in week 3? this bet i'm really not sure about. this will be the hawks first home game and sf looks like dogass, but i can't pass up that line.

OAK (-3.5) over TB
first, the bucs look awful. not that the raiders look great, but second, this will be warren sapp's revenge game. make this the $50 bet of the week (which i'm 2-0 so far this season).

DAL (+2) over WASi was telling anyone who would listen that aside from the first long touchdown, portis didn't look that great. the cowboys always play the skins tough and i think that they'll be able to bottle up portis again, thereby proving shanahan's genius.

saw napoleon dynamite last nite at the welcome back ucsb student body free movie. they had a big screen put up outside the back of the student center so it was kinda cool to see it under the stars surrounded by all the new undergrad females.

anyways, on to the movie. i should preface this by saying that it was really hyped to me by two different people. it was then downgraded to me by two other people. in any case, i didn't know what to expect but my final verdict...not that great.

i mean i guess it was funny and all, but i really don't understand what the big deal about this movie was. i guess it's an mtv film so it will get more buzz than other films, but i really didn't get it. like i said, it was mildly amusing and it had a lot of good one-liners, but i thought that they could've renamed this movie, "the adventures of super-retard in the city of of retarded people". none of the characters made any sense to me except as retarded people. i was telling a friend today that i got just as many laughs out of watching corky in life goes on.

my friend told me it was one of those movies that you either got or didn't get. maybe i'm a shallow person, but i for one, didn't get it.

i've been at this blog thing now for about six months and it's time for me to stop all the nonsense and figure out if this thing is worth the upkeep. as you probably noticed, i've inserted a counter on the right there and i've included my actual name in the header there. up to this point, i had been nearly web anonymous. if you were to type my name in google before all you would come up with is a bunch of websites about non-government organizations. now, as i have published my name on the website, there's no getting around it, if you want to find me you can.

anyways, this was all inspired by the little "view my complete profile" link there on the right. about three months ago, i clicked on it and was supremely excited to find that my profile had been viewed 92 times. now i could be wrong, but i don't think that i even know 92 different people's names, so i was thinking that i was on my way to a side cottage industry of bestowing the masses with my superior insight on sports, pop culture, and the web. however, since that time, that figure of 92 profile views has not changed. in any case, it is hard to tell if blogger just doesn't do a good job of keeping up with who's looking at my profile or if the entire world just lost interest in me at the same time. so now i have an independent counter to see how many people actually come to the site of their own volition.

you see, i need to know if people are reading and since erik and fredo are the only ones who seem to comment on a regular basis, this counter is the only way i can know for sure that i am wasting other people's time. otherwise, this whole exercise is just me jerking off. and i can think of much better things to jerk off to on the internet. geez i really come off as a needy a-hole here, but everyone needs validation dammit.

anyways, i wanted to bring up something that my roommate moira brought up a while ago. she said that the new default comedy shtick for people is jive-talkin' white people. or more precisely white people acting like black people. there have been several movies out recently that have used this tactic for cheap laughs, bringing down the house, white chicks, down to earth...the list goes on and on.

it begs the question, is this making fun of white people for being squares, or is it another version of blackface? i'm inclined to think that it is the latter. what's interesting about the second weblink is that i'm pretty sure that the creators of the video think that they're protesting the RNC. it just seems kinda self defeating to protest the republicans by putting down black people. i know it's not as black and white (no pun intended) as these white people simply making fun of black culture, but in a real sense, i don't think the creators really thought about the racist implications of performing such gestures.

even more importantly, moira also pointed out, it's just not that funny anymore. yeah, i guess it was kinda funny the first time you see it, but now it has become cliched and default for people who can't think up of anything funnier. and that's what i really wanted to say with this post, that the links that i provided to you aren't that funny, yet they're making the blog rounds as funny goofy links.

i've always contended that file sharing and the internet hasn't provided us with greater access to new kinds of cool music that we might not have heard of in the first place, but that instead that the whole digital age only makes it easier to listen to crappy music. apparently, the same rings true for funny bits.

first i'll get all disclaimers out of the way. yes, i know the writers of golf are different from normal sports columnists. yes, i know that in terms of making a sociological claim i have a sampling problem (a sample of one, but maybe i can just use the same crap that the army uses with its retarded army of one campaign). yes i konw that the ryder cup and the olympics are different things as well as golf and basketball having different cultures associated with them. and yes, i know that golf isn't a real sport. however, i don't think that this really matters in my argument.

anyways, the thing to notice about the op-ed piece is the language and the overall tone. this particular writer thinks that the problems isn't necessarily with the team or how ryder cup captain hal sutton f-ed things up, but rather that the europeans are simply better and that the shift in power has happened in the golf world.

if you notice, this is eerily similar to my sentiments about international basketball. however in this case, i think that there are lots of parallels. tiger and phil mickelson are basically the 1 and 2 in the world (minus vijay of course). so why no outrage about why they're egotistical lazy unmotivated a-holes like the us men's basketball team was supposedly made up of? in a sense, isn't it a disgrace to the us that they lost in such a fashion, not even really mustering anything close to a challenge. hell tiger's even half black, so that should give people some excuse.

anyways, the reason, as always is race. first, lots more whitey on the ryder cup team than the us mens basketball team. second, since golf doesn't necessarily eroticize the male body like other sports do, we don't necessarily hold those athletes to the same racist-like standards that we do our basketball players.

i'm not saying this is unequivocal proof that i'm right about the men's basketball team, but if i were wrong, wouldn't the first piece i've read a little differently?

in unrelated news, i had a really tough fantasy sports weekend. i might write more about this later, but right now, just know that derek lowe is an a-hole that the rangers should stay away from at all costs. and fred taylor needs to get his head out of his ass and mix in a touchdown every now and then.

9.18.2004

i'm having a hard time figuring out who's the a-hole here. sure the people at the speech are sorry for shouting down a lady whose son died in an unwinnable war. but bob the contrarian also thinks that the lady is a little bit sorry for doing this at a laura bush speech. you know, i doubt sincerely that laura bush has anything to do with what happens over in the mideast. i know she's the first lady, but she's as milquetoast and irrelavent as her mother-in-law was during sr's term in office. she's the president's wife for god's sake. what do you want her to do? speak out against her husband's policies? maybe in some parallel universe, but not here in these united states.

what's also stupid is that the lady was screaming something about why aren't congress's or senator's children fighting in the war. obviously, this is a ploy that she aped from fahrenheit 9/11. i've written about this before, but doesn't she (ruckus lady) bear some of the responsibility of her child's death. if she had stayed informed in the first place, would she have ever allowed her child to enlist? it just seems that everyone wants to play the blame game. or more specifically, everyone wants to play the deflect blame off of me game.

the point is, the heckler lady is just as sorry as the people responsible for the war. if you believe that the influence of television can be stemmed with good parenting, you also have to believe that the influence of the military propaganda campaign can also be stemmed with good parenting.

9.16.2004

ok kids, last week i went 9-6-1 against the spread. fredo was the only one with enough balls to post his picks against mine, so i'll keep track of his picks too and the winner has to give the other guy a hot dog, a frozen one if you know what i mean. anyways, fredo went 7-8-1 so it's look like i'm in the drivers seat for the frozen hot dog. anyways, as always, the point spreads are from caesar's/mirage sportsbook, and the home team is in bold.

DEN (-3) over JAXBAL (-4) over PIT

DET (-3) over HOU
houston doesn't look like they have it together yet. make detroit my 50 dollar bet two weeks in a row.

IND (+1.5) over TEN

CHI (+9) over GBi don't think the bears looked that bad against the lions, i just think the lions are that much better. i don't think chicago will win, but it'll be close.

WAS (-3) over NYGNO (-7.5) over SF
the niners are in salary cap hell right now. nothing, and i mean nothing on offense.

ATL (-2.5) over STL

CAR (+6.5) over KCi like KC to win this one, but the defense will keep the panthers in it.

SEA (-2) over TBlet's keep rooting for the seahawks cuz if they win the super bowl, i win 320 bucks.

DAL (-4) over CLE

NE (-8) over ARIBUF (+3.5) over OAKSD (+4) over NYJ
call me crazy, but i like the chargers straight up.

CIN (-5.5) over MIA
did the bengals disappoint last week or what? still, miami is starting someone a.j. feely. doesn't do anything for me either.

PHI (-3.5) over MIN
i agonized over this all week. what a great matchup for week two. the problem in picking this game is that they both played teams last week that they were clearly superior to, so it's hard to assess just how good they are. but philadelphia at home, plus what i think is a better defense - the eagles are the smart pick here. and take the over (48.5).

9.15.2004

don't worry, i'm not going to summarize the episodes or anything. there are actually plenty of other websites to do this for you, (planetsocks being my favorite), but i did want to offer forth a theory. this season there is a stereotypical gay male. high voice, out to everyone, real effeminate, etc. nothing new here, we've seen this plenty of times since pablo. however, in an amazing original twist, they also have another gay guy that is the exact opposite of of the stereotypical gay male. well except for his name, karamo. anyways, it's already provided for some ridiculous and inane reactions from his roommates.

here's my theory. despite having the two people who are out, the other dudes, MJ in particular come off as deeply closeted gay. i've always noticed that they have one or more of these guys on the real world. the last real world i watched, las vegas, had 2 of these guys, alton and steve. anyways, my theory is that for the producers of the real world, the holy grail is the straight male who in the course of the season realizes that he's gay. consequently he drops the bombshell on his roommates who react shocked, touched, angry, etc. that's why they always have a guy on the show who fits this mold. this year, MJ clearly fits this profile.

i must admit, this would be great television. we've seen stuff like sorta like this on tv before, but i don't think we've ever seen the entire process unfold before our eyes and the real world producers know that this would be television gold. anyways, let's hope MJ comes out and hooks up with karamo. nothing's hotter than interracial gay porn.

9.10.2004

last night, the 2004 NFL season kicked off with a fantastic game between the patriots and the colts. the pats won a squeaker that came down to the last minute of play.

i think that this is the first year where the nfl has had one single game start the season off. and this provides more evidence that in comparison to the other professional sports leagues, the NFL has it completely figured out.

in any case, i really think that the country probably was more united last night than at any point during the olympics. don't get me wrong, the olympics are kinda neat and it's fun to watch the ping pong competition or whatever, but when it comes down to real sports, i think that americans know that the only appeal to watching the olympics is watching the us wipe the floor with the rest of the world. but let's face it, do any of us care now about swimming, greco roman wrestling, or men's gymnastics? that would be a big fat no. does michael phelps capture our imagination as much as tom brady or even ricky williams does? again, a big fat no. do we really give a rat's ass about whether or not paul hamm is a spoiled munchkin. big...fat...NOGODDAMMITNO!!!!

i know how imperialist i must sound, but really, football (and no, i don't mean soccer, i don't care if the rest of the world calls it futbol, american football, is what football is) is the greatest freakin sport ever.

i'm going to reiterate an old argument here. the reason is that americans, despite the prevailing mythology about sports, watch sports for the real reason why we watch all sports, because we are drawn to the spectacle of the body. deep down, i think that we really don't harbor any high and might ideals about the spirit of competition or any crap like that. that is why we came up with sports that emphasize athletisicm (basketball and football) over the other crap that critics of american sports tend to emphasize. give me a buffed out black guy over skinny iraqis playing soccer any day.

on an unrelated note, i'm worried about the cowboys on sunday. my sports genius prediction for the cowboys is 8-8 and that's being extremely generous. however, my cowboy fans prediction is 15-1. damn it quincy. why can't you be michael vick instead?

9.09.2004

i'm going to embark on a little experiment to decide whether or not i should resume betting on football. this season, i'm going to pick every single NFL game and at the end of the season, we'll try and figure out how much money i would have won if i had bet five dollars on each game. point spreads are from caesar's sportsbook. so without further ado...here are this week's picks.

home team in bold
NE (-3) over IND

TEN (-3) over MIA

OAK (+3.5) over PIT

WAS (-2) over TB

BAL (-3) over CLE

JAX (+2.5) over BUF

CIN (+5) over NYJdoes anyone else find it kinda dumb how everyone thinks that chad pennington is enough to overcome almost nothing at the other skill positions? santana moss and curtis martin, huh...good luck with all that.

DET (+2.5) over CHIwhen i go to vegas, i usually make one really big bet (50 bucks) on one game. this would probably be my 50 dollar game.

STL (-11) over ARI

SEA (-2.5) over NO

SD (+5) over HOU

PHI (-9) over NYG

MIN (-5) over DAL
randy moss has some pretty ridiculous stats against the mighty cowboys. however, in real life, this bet wouldn't count since i would never bet against the cowboys.

9.07.2004

i finally rewatched donnie darko again the other night. and i still don't quite get it. i can't even begin to try and summarize the plot of the movie, so you'll just have to go see it yourself, although i suspect that most people who would read this kind of blog will have already seen it. anyways, i finally gave up on trying to figure out what was going on and googled it and this url does a pretty good job of explaining it. incidentally, it is part of a website that does a thorough analysis of other popular time travel movies, such as 12 monkeys, and the terminator. the analysis runs in terms of what i suppose is prevailing time travel theory and how well the movies depict the outcomes of time travel. it's actually kinda neat stuff in a super stephen hawking nerdy kind of way.

in any case, rewatching this movie got me to thinking about whether or not i like movies like this. on the one hand, i definitely enjoy being challenged by movies and i most definitely like movies that make me think after i'm done watching the movies. for example, i loved mulholland drive. while i didn't quite get it right after i saw it, after thinking about it for a couple of days, i think i figured out what was going on. and then upon watching it a second time, i completely understood it (or at least i think i do).

however, on the other hand, i'm not sure of the point of making a movie that is so obliquely and abstractly produced that i have to look up explanations of basic plot elements on the internet. i mean, that's like having footnotes for movies, and i certainly don't enjoy having to look at them when i'm reading. why on earth would i want to have to look them up when i'm watching a movie? at a fundamental level we watch movies to be entertained right? we certainly don't watch movies to learn about basic fundamentals of time travel.

in any case, donnie darko is an interesting case, since i actually kinda liked it, but after further review, i've decided that i don't like movies that give me tired-head. and donnie darko still really doesn't make any sense to me.

post script note - i originally started writing this blog on aug. 1, but i didn't finish it and saved it as a draft and because i am super flaky/lazy, i'm only now getting around to finishing it.

i just finished reading the Da Vinci Code by dan brown yesterday. i'm not here to give you a full review. but you do need to know some basic plotlines about the book to understand the gist of what i'm trying to say here. there are some major spoilers up ahead so if you plan on reading the book, go ahead and read, i don't give a shit. anyways, the book is about a humanities professor who stumbles upon a secret society designed to protect an alternative history of the christian church. this alternative history revolves around the fact that jesus was married to mary magdalene, had kids, and that once the church got going, it systematically erased references to these things because they were a bunch of guys who didn't want women to have any power. supposedly most of the stuff in the book is based on actual institutions and theories about the history of the church. it's kinda hard from just reading the book to tell the difference between "based on fact" and "artistic license". anyways, allusions to the secret history are supposedly embedded in da vinci's art and the humanities professor has to figure them for the usual thriller genre reasons, he was accused of a crime he didn't commit, he's a target of a vast conspiracy, etc.

anyways, since it was hard to figure out which parts are based on fact, i turned to my trusty research tool, the internet. i googled "the da vinci code" and there were a zillion hits. what is really interesting is that most of these sites are dedicated to saying that dan brown made a zillion factual errors in the book and that dan brown is going to go to hell for being a blasphemer. i should admit that the word "blasphemer" was not used that often, but that surely was the gist of the sites. while it's pretty easy to see that brown took a hell of a lot of artisitic license, i wanted to just say that most of these websites seemed to have missed the point completely.

the point that i got out of the book is that the catholic church has a long history of hating women. they can't be priests, they can't have abortions, and they bear the brunt of blame for several bad things in biblical history (expulsion from the garden of eden, samson and delilah, that sort of thing). the feeling i got from all of these debunking websites, is that since brown got all of his facts wrong (sorta) that the accusations towards the church hating women couldn't possibly be true. well as this recent papal communique suggests, the church still hates women.

in any case, the point is, when these people are getting all bent out of shape over a work of fiction, then it's pretty clear that they themselves are defending their church from the possibility of public discourse about the church's hatred towards women, which in a real sense, means that they hate women too. i know that hate is a strong word, but if i were to make excuses for these people that would mean that i hate women too. and i for one, am amazingly and completely in love with women.

if this study is true, then i should have gotten laid in high school much more often.

i hate studies like this that turn television into a bogeyman that causes our youth to be morally corrupt. first, the study lumps cable and regular television in together. obvious sampling and specification problems. secondly, when is the right time to start shaggin' ass? isn't your twenties kinda late for that kind of thing? are we really that much more emotionally and intellecutally developed at 15 than we were at 12? i think that most of us would agree that your teens is when you should start experimenting with this crap anyways. i for one think that it is a good thing that as a culture we've lost the custom of waiting for marriage to do it.

9.04.2004

honestly, i really couldn't tell any difference between the different browsers and the ubiquitous internet explorer. from what i could see the only difference was the gui and the keyboard shortcuts, both of which i am much more confortable in ie, so i saw no reason to change browsers. as far as the security stuff, i don't do anything i'm ashamed of on the internet (except the midget amputee porn), so screw it, it was just more convenient to use ie. i played with mozilla and opera and netscape, but i just couldn't discern any useful difference. slimbrowser was the first browser to give me a useful difference with the tabbed browsing (using tabs, instead of toolbar space for multiple windows) and since it's based on the ie engine, it took.

well firefox is the first browser where i can actually notice an improvement in the load time of webpages, which in my book is a useful difference. it's still in beta and there are still some things that i hope that they get fixed soon, but so far, i'm kinda digging it. i still have the default browser set to slimbrowser, but if i can figure out some more keyboard shortcuts, i may switch it soon.

the larger point is, between all of the tabbed browsers out there and firefox, there's no reason why anyone should be using ie anymore until the lazy dickheads at microsoft get their shit together and release a better version.

9.03.2004

i really have nothing to say other than i always thought that kobe had too much money to go to jail. in any case, for a much better analysis of what happened, here's a piece by one of my favorite web scribes, dahlia lithwick of slate.